Thursday, June 21, 2012

From Building a UFO Detector to Revisiting Kecksburg

This has been a fun week at the Institute as we are coming
to the end of the quarter and have had some free time. During that time, my
awesome class and I actually focused on and built a UFO Detector from some
plans we discovered. Of course, we modified it some by adding a vintage AM
radio in place of a bell, but the electromagnetic and electronic fundamentals
are all in place. Working on this detector, we decided to watch some
documentaries on local UFO sightings, including probably the most famous Pennsylvania incident,
Kecksburg. Here is an article I wrote on the subject a few years ago, amazingly
much of it is still relevant today.

On
December 10, 2005, over two hundred experts, researchers, witnesses and
visitors gathered in the rural town of Kecksburg,
PA to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Kecksburg Incident. An incident
that remains one of the most mysterious and controversial UFO related
occurrences in United States
history. Unfortunately, even after 40 years, questions remain on what exactly
happened.

In fact, the only thing that is certain after all this time
is something did crash in this small town, forever changing the make-up of this
community, almost tearing it apart at the seams.

From the outset of the afternoon, it was clear that this
amazing ensemble of people were here for more than a party, many interested
bystanders were there in hopes of information and disclosure. The ceremony
started with researcher Stan Gordon presenting a historical look at what
exactly occurred on December 9, 1965. Gordon has been researching the Kecksburg
Incident for three decades and is the pre-emanate expert on the subject.

As a researcher and Pennsylvania
native (I grew up a mere 25 miles from Kecksburg), this topic has always
intrigued me. As with everything that I research, I cannot find enough
information.

“Regardless of what came down, we need to know the truth,”
states Gordon “what was so important that our government still holds it secret
after 40 years.” I do not think anyone could have said it better. What was so
important? Especially when you consider the fact that the official US government
stance on Kecksburg is “our searchers failed to find an object,” found in a
small blurb in the unclassified Project Blue Book papers. This information
isn’t even correct in those pages, listing the location of the incident in
Acme, PA.

Eyewitness testimony and accounts totally contradict the
government statements, it reveals that there were a lot more than three
government officials in the area and something was found and recovered by the US military.
The first reporter on the scene Bob Gatty, reported, “he was greeted by a group
of military officials when he got to the scene,” in his initial newspaper
reports.

The Kecksburg Incident almost disappeared from the map,
until the television program Unsolved Mysteries returned it to the mainstream
in 1990. The show brought out new evidence and witnesses. Witnesses that place
this mysterious “acorn shaped” object first at Lockbourne AFB in Ohio, and then finally
at Wright Patterson AFB, the actual home for Project Blue Book and ironically
in the original flight path of the object on the afternoon of December 9th.
Witnesses in Ohio
have stated that they saw two plains take-off and follow the capsule after it
passed over the base.

So what could be so important that our government would
cover-up its recovery? For the longest time, one of the theories that had a
large amount of backing was the recovery of a failed Russian Venus Probe,
Cosmos 96. After all, Cosmos 96 did return to earth’s atmosphere on December 9th,
1965. If that was the case, a cover-up would be understandable at that time
during the “Cold War.” Unfortunately, government data, including the orbital
coordinates of the craft, and even the Russian Space Agency has ruled out this
possibility. Besides, the size and shape of Cosmos 96 does not match that of
the “acorn shaped” debris reportedly recovered by the government. Cosmos 96 was
cylindrical shaped, but it measured only three feet in diameter, not the
15-plus feet documented in eyewitness reports in Kecksburg.

More importantly, it was discovered that no other man-made
space debris entered the atmosphere on that date. Researchers know that
pictures of the debris were taken prior to its removal from the wooded area,
unfortunately, like the other documentation requested, none of these pictures
can be found.

True to form, NASA released a statement on December 8th,
2005, stating that the debris was actually the Russian Craft, unfortunately,
they claimed to have “misplaced the craft and all of the documentation,” making
their statement useless.

The one thing that makes that statement is interesting
though is that it was not provided to researchers previously, even after the
organization was actually taken to court by the Coalition of Freedom of
Information (CFI) and the Sci-Fi Channel in 2002. Both NASA and the Department
of Defense were placed in the spotlight after these groups were denied
information during the preparation of a 2002 documentary.

These stonewalling measures are still being practiced by
these organizations, as I have witness by the denial of my own Freedom of
Information Act requests. I provided the United States Army and Department of
Defense with specific detachment information, location, date and time and have
received only a “we no longer have records over 25 years old” answer, written
almost 30 days after the case was opened by their offices. I don’t know about
you, but two weeks to provide that specific answer doesn’t add up.

CFI received a boost in their fight against the government,
when former President Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta joined the fight.
Podesta is one of the biggest advocates against government secrecy and has been
responsible for the release of over 50,000 previously classified documents.
While Podesta remains a skeptic on the existence of extra terrestrial beings,
he pushes for disclosure if it exists.

During the press conference announcing the suit, Podesta
states, “people should know the truth, can handle the truth and it is the law!”
Podesta’s statement rings true for Kecksburg and the many hidden incidents that
have occurred throughout history that have been washed away by our leaders.

While this case remains in the hands of our federal court
system, with no apparent end in sight, new witnesses and information is still
being discovered daily. These strides, while small, may eventually lead to the
discovery of what exactly happened in this rural community.